RAPID INJECTION MOLDING

WayKen on demand provides rapid tooling of both aluminum and steel and plastic injection molding to turn over your spec material parts within 2-5 weeks.

From functional prototype, to short runs, and then production parts, we combine rapid injection molding processes with proprietary technology and an experienced team to deliver high quality injection molded parts, helping you reduce design risks and save overall production costs.

Rapid Injection Molding Services

Low volume prototype is the best way to save time and cost for testing form and fit as well as preliminary market test, but anyhow it cannot match the final finish and function effect of the injection molded plastic parts. When your production tooling won’t be ready for months, rapid injection molding (also known as prototype molding or soft tooling) then is a great option for you to receive parts quickly with less cost.

WayKen invests in an independent injection molding factory which can use various materials and techniques to create bridge tooling for prototype testing and pre-production evaluation. We deliver injection molded parts on your schedule to support your entire testing, and help troubleshoot possible process issues in full production.

Producing hundreds to a thousand injection molded prototypes can be a very helpful step before moving to mass production. The pilot runs injection molding will be able to bridge the gap between prototype and production, get your functional and form-fit tests done quicker, allow you to show potential consumers and salesmen a definitive finished product, and let any issues to be discovered and corrected well before them transferred to manufacturing.

Rapid bridge tooling is often far more cost effective than a production mold due to faster in building and shorter cycle time, therefore reducing the mold and overall production costs.

Our proprietary process and experienced team focusing on your project enables us to bust the standard industry lead time for tooling and molding. There is no need to compromise and limit your design to our process, because we have the equipment, capability, and knowledge to deliver your molded parts within 2-5 weeks, no matter what industry you’re in. Simplified injection molding process promotes your product development.

Rapid Injection Molding Solution for Low Volume Production

Rapid injection molding is one of plastic molding, which can not only manufacture hundreds of pilot runs production for test prototypes close to the final product, but also provide on-demand production of end-use parts for low-volume manufacturing. Understanding how many molded parts you might need allows better suggestion for your partner’s investing in tool life and process technologies.

At WayKen, We blend traditional injection mold tooling methods with rapid mold tooling to produce plastic molded parts quickly and cost efficiently at production quality instead of molded prototypes still in development and testing phases. WayKen takes a proactive approach to plastic projects, providing cost-effective and rationalized advice from designs, materials, production processes, manufacturability, etc. We determine your best pathway to the marketplace based on your project’s goals and expectations. Our engineers and master molders can make this process less painful and time consuming to make sure your part can be molded as intended, from the start. If you want to get custom rapid injection molds, you can upload a free CAD file there.

Optimized Design for Manufacturability (DFM)

Design for manufacturability (DFM) covers every aspect of the injection molding process from part design, mold tooling design, and materials selection to processing.

With 20 years of practical experience in traditional mold making and rapid tooling, our engineers will put together a comprehensive interactive quote and manufacturability analysis, and will be able to conduct design reviews to recommend the best technology for your part. Including gate type and location, parting line, draft, runner system, slide and insert, ejection, critical dimensions, tolerances and surface finishes, all matter when it comes time for production.

No need to wait for production to reveal issues with design, because with optimized design for manufacturability, our engineers will ensure your parts can be tooled and molded to scale as cost-effectively as possible.

Choose the Right Material of Mold Tools

At WayKen, our technologies provide complete mold making capability and immediate support for tool modifications. From prototype molding to production tooling we can make injection molding tools from Aluminum 7075, P20 and NAK80 semi-hardened steels and H13 fully-hardened steel.

The right material of mold tools on your project is critical in making a manufacturing decision. Typically, this would involve considerations such as intended use, volume requirements, and expected investment, as well as design complexity, mold structure, and so on. Not sure which one to choose? We will help you weigh each of these advantages to find the best solution for your product needs.

Additionally, we offer standard SPI finishes, EDM texturing and a range of etched textures including Mold-Tech® MT series and VDI® 3400 series. Various materials supplies are avaliable there for your product design.

Cost-effective Mold Manufacturing Process

Forward-looking engineering design supports our cost-effective mold manufacturing process. WayKen begins the design review process with you and our design engineers. We believe that a great solution means full communication meanwhile ensure u can get available resources selection.

In order to fully satisfy the need of rapid production and cost reduction, normally we utilize the Master Unit Die (MUD) systems to quickly change mold bases which are proven to save tooling time and reduce costs. Even more importantly, engineering changes involve only the MUD mold insert, not an entire standard mold base. You can also group several similar parts together on what is known as a family tool for greater savings. In addition, manual or semi-automatic inserts are also often used in rapid mold tooling.

With such production tooling approach we can keep the investment cost low and in case of any modification we could implement quickly requested change.

Need 100, 1,000, 50,000, or 100,000? Or more? When you need low-volume production molded parts on a short timeline, there are no limitations to what we can produce.

Rapid Tooling for Aluminum Molds

WayKen has years of experience in creating rapid aluminum tooling. Typically, aluminum molds made from AL7075 (which is aircraft –grade aluminum) are just as strong and durable as traditional P20 tooling. Since the aluminum is in lighter weight and good machinability, aluminum tooling lowers the cost to build a mold as opposed to hard steel as it can be machined 15%-30% faster and polished 3-10 times faster. Due to a variety of factors ranging from cost, lead times, volumes etc., many injection molding companies are starting to put much more emphasis on aluminum injection mold and tooling.

Have a complex part design, with tight tolerances, and various surface finishes and textures? Don’t worry. Our aluminum tooling process can handle it and we won’t ask you to change any things, and allow you to reach the market the fastest with the least amount of cost.

Faster Production Changeovers and Lower Tooling Costs

With optimized mold designing and machining, our aluminum molds have far exceeded its projected tool lifespan. A 100,000 product life expectancy can be achieved with aluminum cavities.

Aluminum can be used to make MUD molds, which mean lower tooling costs and faster production changeovers, and offer the remarkable flexibility approach for just-in-time scheduling.

Faster machining efficiencies of aluminum allows us to machine the mold directly, for instance, the ribs, radius, sharp edges and so on. It shortens the time to do EDM and Wire EDM treatment.

Aluminum is a very strong conductor of heat. Quicker cooling generally means substantially reduced cycle time and faster parts, and allows us to process without machining some cooling channels.

Aluminum tools are easier to machine than steel tooling. So iterative design changes or creating modifications are typically less burdensome and less cost impact.

Hand Loads: Simple Approach for Complex Plastic Parts

The rapid aluminum tools and production molds differ in the way of creating complex geometries inside the molds, like undercuts and threads, etc. Typically, aluminum molds use hand-loads to create these features rather than the automatic lifters or slides common to production steel molds.

Hand loads are machined components that are manually inserted into the ejector side of a mold before each shot. Once the shot is completed, the hand-loads eject with the molded plastic part. An operator removes the hand loads from the part and reinstalls them into the mold for the next shot.

Hand loads in these situations offer simple solutions to complex design challenges, which can be the best approach for efficiently producing complex plastic parts and low-volume runs at lower cost and shorter lead time.

Plastic Injection Molding Services

Process of Plastic Injection Molding

Once your plastic injection mold tools are ready, the molding process includes the following basic steps:

Inject molding resin in raw pellet form, dehumidify the raw material and then load them into the hopper.

Mix and heat the pellets until they are fully molten, forming liquid resin.

Inject the melted material into the closed mold cavity through a reciprocating screw inside the barrel of the machine.

Cool the mold to solidify the part inside.

Open the mold and get the finished part by ejector. Then begin a new cycle.

The Selection of An Experienced Injection Molding Partner Is Critical

The thermoplastic injection molding is a standard process. More knowledge, skill and expertise are required, as well as the proper equipment and tools. There are many important elements that need to be all monitored in real time, including temperature, pressure, material flow rate, clamping force, cooling time and rate, material moisture rate and filling time, as well as correlations of part characteristics to key molding variables. From the first-off-tool part to finished product production, there is a chain of knowledge incorporated into design and manufacture, and this process is the culmination of many years of experience by highly trained and skilled engineers and machinists.

WayKen is a low-volume manufacturer, able to provide a range of lifetime part volumes—from as few as 100 to more than 100,000 with plastic injection molding. Each time, we apply an unsurpassed level of expertise to delivering quality and repeatability on every part. WayKen is a hassle free plastic part manufacturer who can do all under one roof, including design and tool building, tool debugging, material selection, and the injection molding process. What does this mean to customers? It means that your business is easily managed and you won’t waste time or money dealing with an inefficient process. With this, WayKen operates like an automated assembly line.

When the design is stable or volumes are growing, WayKen will assist with moving to conventional mold production. As an experienced injection molding partner, we make mold processing simplified with multiple cost-effective options aligned to your needs. Diversified solutions for custom plastic means you work with a single source for everything from production to delivery.